How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Torture     Ten years ago, if someone asked me if I thought that my country, the United States of America, would torture a prisoner in the course of an interrogation, I would grant that, perhaps, a rogue CIA agent might. But he or she would be acting on their own, and would be punished if caught.

    That torture would not only become a tacitly admitted policy of our government, nearing official endorsement and debated openly by Presidential     hopefuls on broadcast television seems like a side note from a dystopic William Gibson novel.

    In a future world where people have computer interfaces in     their molars and buy cheap knock-off organ replacements in back alleys, torture would seem a plausible part of the American way. But, I thought, not in my real-world land of self-evident rights and constitutionally mandated freedoms.

    I evidently thought wrong. First, Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo several years ago claiming that the Geneva conventions on torture are obsolete. A year or so later anti-torture legislation introduced in congress almost gets vetoed and is dismissed as "unnecessary" by the President and many like-minded Americans.

    Most recently, on May 16, during a televised GOP debate, an elaborately constructed story was presented to the amazing assemblage of old, white men in order to get a bead on their torture stances*. While the scenario seemed like the synopsis of a rejected TV pilot, it did effectively present the closest thing to a no-brainer for torture I've seen bandied about on prime time television.

    Convoluted plots aside, the question presented to the candidates ultimately was: do you think torture should be used if you thought that doing so was the only way to prevent the death of innocent civilians? Should there be a law allowing the torture?

    During the debate John McCain stuck to his guns, doing a little robot dance while declaring the utter unacceptability of torture under any circumstances. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, not only seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of torture, but tossed in his support for the recent suspension of habeas corpus for good measure by saying, "I want them in Guantanamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil." He followed that up by proposing they double the size of the Guantanamo prison. That would help them shorten the waiting list, I suppose.

    In any case it was Giuliani that finally made me come to this essay's titular position. Basically, he waffled. He walked right up to the line of endorsing torture and....drooled stupidly on it. Interrogators should "use every method they could think of," he stammered, "Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of."

    Obviously he was working with a different interpretation of the word "every" than I'm most comfortable with, but he's from New York, has guest starred on Saturday Night Live several times, and therefore is the recipient of my rare and coveted benefit-of-the-doubt. This sort of don't-ask-don't-tell torture policy seems duplicitous, but it illuminates the fact that these men, each of whom would happily vow to gladly give their life for this country, have no intention of laying their freedom on the line in the service of the public good.

    Of course you would torture the prisoner if it would save innocent lives. Should you ship him to Guantanimo first? No, that seems like a waste of time. Torture him in the nearest Holiday Inn for all I care. But I would NOT legalize torture. It should be highly illegal. It should carry mandatory, heavy jail sentences. If the torture should result in death, then it should be considered a capital offense.

    This would make the use of torture a sort of personal policy of mutual destruction whereby every person who engages in the torture of a suspect not only knows that they will likely go to prison for the rest of their productive lives but should go gladly, without fuss, pleading guilty as charged to every judge that he or she meets along the way. You don't get a free pass, and there should be no law that will protect you.

    If I would ask a police officer, a fireman, or a soldier to put themselves in harms way--even to die--for citizens like me, then shouldn't I ask our interrogators to put themselves in legal jeopardy for us as well?

    If you legalize torture under any circumstances, then you tempt authority to abuse the power you've given it. You would need to put in place regulatory mechanisms to ensure that torture isn't being used under false or inadequate pretenses. Such regulatory mechanisms would either be expensive or ineffective and neither of those are the kinds of regulatory mechanisms we can afford.

    Besides which, even if you satisfy the American public that torture isn't being abused, you establish a precedent by which we, as a country, lose our ability to act as credible protesters of the human rights violations of others on the world stage. Pots can't get away with calling kettles black, says the cliché machine. And I tend to agree with it when I'm the one driving. It would be better, I think, to be able to state unequivocally that torture is illegal. Problem solved; no regulatory requirements, no kettles crying foul.

    By making torture the legal equivalent of jumping on a grenade thrown into a crowd, you instill the appropriate amount of reticence and respect that the use of torture deserves. If you fear that this would make an interrogator lax in his or her duty and that he or she would allow "the bomb" to go off just because they don't want to go to prison then I say to you that such a selfish agent is the EXACT kind of person I would not want to give a free pass to. By refusing to take the legal bullet they've proven themselves to not be sufficiently committed to the good of the country to be trusted with that kind of power.

    So what if torture was the only way to save the lives of innocent people? I would take a real bullet to save the lives of my family. So why wouldn't I take a judicial bullet, too? I would torture the terrorist. I would get the information necessary to save the lives of my fellow humans.

    And I would go to jail for the rest of my life, every year of which would be bittersweet, but justified. If you would die for this country, you should be willing to go to prison for it, too.


* My torture stance is a kind-of a kung fu pose, normally assumed with a feather duster in one hand and a knotted length of barbed wire running through a bent-pipe in the other. Think Bruce Lee meets Marquis de Sade.  ¶ 10:02 AM 0 Comments